Women and wolves: Sharing a common soul

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TAHOE/TRUCKEE, Calif. — Clarissa Pinkola Estes, Ph.D, is a clinical psychologist, a Jungian analyst and a cantadora, “keeper of the old stories.”

Her book, “Women Who Run with the Wolves – Myths and Stories of the Wild Woman Archetype” is written as a guidebook for women to find their way home to themselves. Beginning on March 1, I will facilitate a group for women based on her book which will offer a place for women to explore parts of their lives that may have been left behind and a way to reconnect with the wildness or intuition that is often buried underneath shame and doubt.

Many times in their lives, women are called by a voice they recognize, a deep knowing or an intuition, but they do not answer because the cultural rules or family rules keep them bound to a life that is not theirs.

We stay in relationships that starve us out of living fully out of our wisdom and creativity, or we step back from the creative leap having lost the trust that our wings will open.

The wolf is a symbol of the feminine, an archetype of all that is soft yet powerful, innocent yet wise, tribal yet happy to wander off alone to bathe in the moonlight or tend to her heart, graceful and enduring, capable of going a great distance to find what she is looking for and above all, trusting her wild nature to take her where she needs to go.

The group will read the book together and talk about how each chapter has opened us into uncovering what we need to find in ourselves to live fully into our own skin; to wear all the colors and scars that make us who we are with reverence for each and every event we have experienced along the path of our lives.

The group is offered on a donation basis. Books are provided for $12. The group will meet Saturday afternoons at For Goodness Sake in downtown Truckee, 3-5 p.m.